For $500-a-head meals, best leave your ‘devil baby’ with the sitter

To dine or not to dine out with your crying 8-month-old … or 2-month-old … or 2-year-old? That is the question. And social-media denizens, along with the chef of an acclaimed Chicago restaurant, have your answer.

If you don’t chow down at $500-a-head restaurants, and have ignored #babies and #restaurants on Twitter lately, then you’ve missed a social-media doozy. The sob story began in Chicago on Saturday when a couple brought their 8-month-old baby (a sitter canceled at the last minute, apparently) into the three-star Alinea restaurant. Its 18-course menu includes molecular/deconstructivist/experimental (says Wikipedia) fare such as woolly pig, oyster leaves and “scallop, acting like agedashi tofu.” Add tax, tips and drinks to that $210 menu, and, well, $500 wouldn’t be far off.

The tantrums at Alinea began when the baby started crying and the chef started tweeting:

Unlike that Panera chain that kicked a toddler out over noisy shoes (an apology came fast on that one), Alinea’s chef never actually ejected the couple and their tot, and social media mostly seemed to be in his corner as the debate continued into Wednesday:

“I could hear it crying it in the kitchen,” Grant Achatz, chef/owner of Alinea, told the show Tuesday. “We want people to come in and enjoy and experience Alinea for what it is, but we also have to be cognizant of the other 80 people that came in to experience Alinea that night.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Posing as that crying baby, “Al B” gave a parody Alinea review on Yelp (since yanked), which reportedly including this zinger:

“There was a grown-up at the adjoining table who took a furtive cell-phone photo of one of his dishes, an action which even a baby knows is prohibited. I attempted to alert the server in the only way I knew how, by first bleating repeatedly and then letting loose with a full-throated cry.”

Not stopping there, one tweeter set up @AlineaBaby on Sunday to tell the baby’s side of the story, and it’s up to nearly 1,000 followers:

And the chef played along:

The end. It’s all a crying shame, and, OK, we all know that small babies can’t go everywhere. (Redeye has five more places in Chicago that are even more inappropriate for a baby). Still, Achatz should thank his three Michelin stars that Devil Baby didn’t come to dinner last weekend instead.

— Barbara Kollmeyer writes for MarketWatch in Madrid and dines at home. Follow her @bkollmeyer